Bittersweet Gifts
by loseyourself6712
Summary: When Bella revisits the place that causes her the most pain, she finds something left by her psychic best friend that leaves her in tears of both joy and anguish. please review!


Disclaimer: All characters belong to Stephenie Meyer! I don't own anything.

It wasn't enough for me to "slip" and think about him all the time. It wasn't enough for me to walk this fine, precarious line that I called my life. Nope, I had to be here, standing in front of their house wishing I had something better to do with my time.

Not long ago I came to the conclusion that I really did want to forget, just a little at least. Not long after that I figured out that no matter how hard I tried, there is no way that the memories of _him_ will ever leave my mind. I'm stuck with them forever. So whether he wanted to be in my life or not, he was there.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't-sometimes in life the hardest thing to do is live.

My feet were asleep I'd been standing in the same place for so long. I wanted so desperately to leave and go see Jake like I told myself I should. But I couldn't move. Mere months ago, Id been here with him, right in this very vicinity. Laughing, joking, playing and thinking about our future together. I was so hopeful for that, I wanted it more than anything. But it was taken from me so abruptly the shock alone took months to recover from.

The tingling started to radiate up my leg and I took a few breaths and moved my foot, but not in the direction it should be going. Then suddenly I was sitting on the porch stairs, thinking about how my best friend would bound down them too quickly for my eyes to register to tell me some urgent news. Which of course always ended up being something like what nail color she picked for herself that day; a pang to the heart accompanied that thought. I just still can't believe I'll never see her again.

An overpowering urge kicked in then as I realized just how mad I was that the opportunity to talk to her, or _him_ for that matter was taken away from me. I was so mad I could kick something. _How _could he do that to me? _How_ after all we went through, how much I loved him? I hated that that happened, I hated that he left me. But most of all I hated how I ever tricked myself into thinking he loved me too. Never again will I make that mistake.

I couldn't at least have gotten a simple goodbye? There are ways to break up with people that don't involve uprooting your entire family and fleeing the state. _It will be as if I never existed_, yeah, funny joke.

I needed closure, doctors always talked about closure and how it was so vital in the healing process. I guess that's what I needed to do. But I don't think sitting on the stoop of my ex-boyfriends house harassing my emotions counts as closure. But what does?

I stood up and looked around, and before my brain could even recognize what I was doing, I took two tentative steps toward the door and turned the knob. I closed my eyes, and went inside.

They say smell stays with you the longest, that it's the "best" of the senses. Well, I'd certainly believe that. A rush of memories came flooding back to me as I opened the door. I remember walking through it for the first time, more scared than I had ever been in my life and about to meet a coven of supposedly docile vampires.

I saw the piano on the landing and it felt like my chest was collapsing inside me. I didn't want to look down because surely, it was on the floor running to safer ground. I spotted that piano and realized exactly where I wanted to be.

I walked up each of the stairs, slowly like I was walking down a plank. I put my hand on the banister realizing for the first time how dirty the house was, as my hand came up covered in light white dust. I brushed it off and made my way down the hall thinking if they ever came back here they would know I came here, they'd smell me. Embarrassing. But I didn't care, they weren't coming back-that was made _very _clear to me.

As I approached the door of the boy id been willing to spend the rest of eternity with my heart sped forward like it could feel his presence inside. With every step I felt like I was in a horror movie, in a part where the audience screams "turn around!" but the clueless character proceeds against better judgment. I turned the handle to the doorknob of his room, and found something both so exhilarating and so depressing at the same time. I was elated, yet disappointed.

He hadn't taken a thing with him.

Nothing, everything was there, just as I remembered it, just as I stored it in my memory.

Books, CD's, pictures, everything. He had reentered my life, finally, in some form. But I quickly realized with the greatest of aches in my heart that he left them here, most likely in hopes to forget he ever set foot in Forks, Washington. He wanted to forget everything that had happened here, even if it meant leaving all belongings behind.

What, was I doing here?

It smelled like him, and I loved it. I missed that smell so much. I went to the bookshelf, searching for something. Of what I wasn't sure, I guess I'd know when I found it. My fingers touched one, old, bruised, I picked it up and what else would it be but _Romeo and Juliet_. Of course.

Two star-crossed lovers, blinded by the sight of their own youth and insecurity, a tragedy; it was perfect. I opened it up, and skipped to the end, though I didn't need -I was living it. As just a human instinct, my eyes drifted to the very last lines, which I didn't need the book to know, "For never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo."

I was getting greedy now as a thought slowly crept through my mind, _now I want something of Alice's._ I tiptoed down to her room like a vampire would hear me if they were around. I cracked the door open and peered inside with as much quiet gentleness as I could manage.

To my utter surprise, and to a complete expectation I didn't know I had, there was a bag on table by the door with an index card that said only:

_Bella_

I turned it over and it said two simple words that spoke so much, yet so little.

_I'm sorry._

The bag was gorgeous, which I'm assuming now is mine. Some big-shot designer in Italy I'm sure. I opened the bag and saw a paper, perfectly folded and slightly fragile for being untouched so long. I opened up the paper carefully, didn't want any paper cuts, and saw that it was a letter to Alice.

_Alice,_

_I think you are the only one who can understand where I'm coming from. I am so sorry I have to do this, and you probably understand better than I do what exactly is happening. I will not fall for this girl, I won't allow it. Maybe I'll stay in Denali as long as she's here, I don't know. You'll know when I figure it out. Break it to Esme carefully, I hate to upset her. I couldn't bring myself to say goodbye, coward that I am. I know I love her Alice, but maybe it isn't late to reverse it. The best thing for her is if I stay away, far away. She'll forget I ever entered her life, only a blur on a reel of memories that is the human mind. To her, I am a student at Forks High school who shared a biology class with her, and a student I will stay. I have to do this. Please understand, though I know you will._

_Edward_

I clutched the letter like it was the only thing holding me to this Earth. He had touched this paper, written on it, held it, read it and re-read it and if I could help it this paper would never leave my hands. I looked at it again and realized it was wet, apparently I was crying. Recognizing this, I thought about why I was crying and cried even harder. I fell to the ground, still clutching the paper to my chest. My chest heaved in and out; surely I was taking my last breaths. The room spun and my eyes went white with the information I was just given. "_I know I love her," "I know I love her," _even though he told me that he hadn't. At one point he had loved me. I realized immediately when this letter was written, after I met him, when he left for all that time…when I was so disappointed that he didn't come back for so long. He had already loved me, and I didn't even know it. It was love at first sight, for him at least.

And the best thing was for him to leave? I always knew that he thought he was a monster, that I was better off without him, safer. And I knew that was half of the motive of him leaving me…for good. But I thought the other half was the fact that he got tired of being what he wasn't, got tired of being around boring me, a human that couldn't compare in the slightest to anything he could get. I cringed a little with that last thought. He could do so much better than me, and he knew it.

But maybe, just maybe he really did just leave because he thought I would be safer that way. Maybe there was just a tiny shadow of a doubt that he still possibly loved me.

And I could live with that.


End file.
